Look What Happened to Professor Who Got Fired for Being White

ST. LOUIS (CN) — A Missouri appeals court upheld a $4.85 million racial discrimination award to a white teacher who was fired from Harris-Stowe State University, an historically black college.

A trial jury awarded Elizabeth Wilkins $1.35 million in compensatory damages and $3.5 million in punitive damages on her claim that she was fired in favor of less senior black teachers. She also claimed Dr. Latisha Smith, the temporary co-chair for Harris-Stowe’s Teacher Education Department, repeatedly proclaimed her belief in “black power” in emails.

Harris-Stowe’s defense was crippled by the fact that it deleted emails in Smith’s account, in violation of a court order.

“During discovery, the trial court ordered the Board [of Regents] to preserve Dr. Smith’s email account,” Judge Kurt Odenwald wrote for the three-judge panel.
“In violation of the order, the Board deleted Dr. Smith’s email account. Because of this violation, the trial court ruled, as a sanction, that the following allegations were deemed admitted: Dr. Smith’s email account contained statements expressing her desire to make the Teacher Education Department ‘blacker’ and that she recommended terminating Wilkins’s employment.”

Harris-Stowe claimed it fired Wilkins for her “inappropriate activities.”